Nicotine is currently used as a dilute solution, typically in combination flavor, in liquid in vaporization devises (commonly known as vaporizers), as well as cessation devises such as patches and gums. A salient feature of the state of the art is that essentially all the nicotine employed in these “vaping devises” is nicotine liquor that has been prepared from tobacco, extracted from the tobacco plant usually using kerosene as the solvent, then purified; and such extracts cannot be purified to rid of many of the compounds that are also found in tobacco plant extract. Thus, extremely pure nicotine that is devoid of these contaminants is not, nor has not been commercially available, and may prove to be very difficult to prepare commercially, or even in research quantities. It is important to note that many of these contaminants are unhealthful for the human system, many have been shown to be carcinogenic, and enhance addictive qualities of the “nicotine”.
A need for nicotine material that is devoid of these disease causing contaminants exist in today's marketplace.
While several synthetic methods of nicotine preparation are known, the commercialization of synthetic nicotine has not taken place. Known methods of preparing extremely pure synthetic nicotine are prohibitively costly on an industrial scale. See for example, EP 2487172.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a synthesis of nicotine that avoids/minimizes many of the pitfalls of the methods previously reported for the synthetic preparation of nicotine on an industrial scale, thus achieving pure nicotine in commercially viable quantities and with an acceptable cost of manufacturing.